


Cure My Weary Bones (With Cuddling and Hugs)

by BrokenHazelEyes



Series: The Pillow Forts [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, captain america: the winter soldier - Fandom
Genre: Avengers Sleepover, Cuddling, Domestic Avengers, Everything's fine and dandy and there is a pillow fort, FIx It, Fluff, Fort Building, Minor Angst, Minor reference to past self harming behavior, Movie Night, Multi, Pillow & Blanket Forts, Sleepiness, Sleepovers, blanket fort, pillow fort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 12:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1819207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrokenHazelEyes/pseuds/BrokenHazelEyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Good morning,” Bruce spoke up politely, “Can we help you?” <br/>Tony groaned even louder, smacking Bruce’s arm and flopping onto his stomach to a point where it looked like his spine was twisted in an unbearable fashion. The scientist ignored him, focusing on sitting up and brushing the hair out of his eyes. <br/>“We are going to have a movie night tonight, and me and you and going to build a massive fort for everyone." Natasha explained. <br/>___<br/>In which Sam, Bruce and Natasha build a giant pillow fort for everyone. <br/>... I am writing way to much fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cure My Weary Bones (With Cuddling and Hugs)

            Few things are as beautiful as the feeling of watching a broken person survive another night and gain some light in their eyes; no matter how little they gain. Recovery is a dirty, messy slope and hard to watch, but it’s as mesmerizing as a dying flower slowly righting itself toward the sun. There’s always that fear in your gut that it’s just going to fall again and then never get up; but there’s also the heart-squeezing hope that it rises up and learns how to be strong again.

            Everyone has their own story, but for some they also carry the burden of their friends, family… comrades. _He’s got Steve_ , Natasha assured herself, closing her eyes against the violent shade of red that painted so many of her memories. She’d seen Red Room recruits go mad and take down as many people as they could around them before turning the gun or knife on themselves, and if they didn’t kill themselves then there was always someone to take care of them. Make sure that they didn’t survive the night.

            She knew a girl who had been killed by the Winter Soldier after she’d escaped from the Red Room; but so far Bucky never mentioned that death and Natasha would never force that memory on him. She’d seen the photos…

            However Natasha also knew well that there were plenty enough remembered massacres that Bucky lived in shame and guilt on an endless loop. She was glad the building was soundproofed so well, but she’d seen bags under both soldiers’ eyes from nights full of screams and sobs.

            She’d been there the night that Steve was away for a mission and Bucky woke up alone. He’d clawed open the space where metal met flesh, and they’d found him with blood all over the bathroom tile floor and his side. Natasha wasn’t sure which was worse: Bucky’s blood splashed over the white tiles, or Steve’s tortured face when he’d returned.

            That’s why she was heading up to the two men’s floor; holding Steve’s debriefing folder in her hands. She knew that the Captain had returned an hour ago, and she didn’t want to disturb him but she was ordered to give it to him.

            The elevator dinged at the correct floor, and the doors opened to a dim hallway. Carefully, on silent feet, the woman padded toward the bed room and knocked. There was no answer for a few moments, but then heavy footsteps ambled toward the entrance.

            To be fully honest, Natasha was expecting Bucky—as she knew he would stay up for days. Instead Steve opened the door, his hair mussed up and one of his hands rubbing at sleepy eyes.

            “-ello.” The tired man yawned, leaning against the doorframe. Natasha raised an eyebrow, peering behind him. The fort was hard to see—hidden in darkness—but easy to identify once her eyes adjusted to the gloom.

            “Which one of you built the blanket fort?” She asked with a laugh, handing over the folder. She already had a good idea which of the two built it, but asking nonetheless.

            “Shhhh..” Steve quieted her, motioning drunkenly with his hands to lower her voice, “Bucky’s finally sleeping.” There was obvious delight in his slumber laden voice. It warmed Natasha’s heart a tad and, though she maintained that love was for children, was glad the two were getting the rest they needed.

            “I’m guessing Bucky, then. Clint builds them all the time.”

            Steve nodded, not at all surprised, taking the file out of her hands and placing it down on a nearby table. The glow of Christmas lights was the only light on—except for the barley illuminating hallway lights—and it did nothing but enhance how tired Steve looked.

            “-‘m going back to bed,” Steve huffed, his manners apparently lost, before closing the door gently and padding away until the footsteps silenced. Natasha rolled her eyes and turned away—slightly saddened she couldn’t sneak back in with a phone and snap a picture of the two cuddled up in the fort—and made her way back to the elevator.

            An idea was forming rapidly in her head, and a deadly grin soon lit up the desolate elevator as she returned to her own floor. Natasha didn’t jitter with excitement, or go off to start the building, but just slipped into bed and curled under the covers.

            Oh, this was going to be perfect.

            __                               __                                __                                __                   

 

            This probably wasn’t Natasha’s best idea, but it was also far from her most dangerous one, so the plan was a go. Perched on the edge of Bruce’s bed, she waited for his eyes to flutter open and his arms to move from their position wrapped around Tony. _The Tower’s inhabitants had **no sense** of personal space, which was the first thing anyone entering the tower learned._ This was not the first time Tony and Bruce had woken up to her watching them—and they weren’t the only victims.

            The story of how she’d fallen asleep in her room, and then woke up on a floating inflatable chair in roof’s pool was one for a different time—but Natasha supposed the “spying” on them sleeping could be considered revenge.

            Surprisingly, Tony woke first, took one look at her, and groaned loud into the pillow. Bruce huffed into his lover’s back, blinking awake slowly. His voice was scratchy, throaty and rough, but slowly it soothed back into his normal tone.

            “Wha-?” He sighed, and Tony threw out one of his arms dramatically toward where Natasha was crouching.

            “There’s a spider in our room. Go kill it.” The engineer whined, and Bruce lifted his head from the bed to peer where Tony was pointing.

            To Natasha, the plan was going perfectly. The two were awake and Bruce wasn’t vast and green.

            “Good morning,” Bruce spoke up politely, “Can we help you?”

            Tony groaned even louder, smacking Bruce’s arm and flopping onto his stomach to a point where it looked like his spine was twisted in an unbearable fashion. The scientist ignored him, focusing on sitting up and brushing the hair out of his eyes.

            “We are going to have a movie night tonight, and me and you and going to build a massive fort for everyone. Oh, and if we can track down Clint then he can help too.” The ex-Red Room agent told the man nonchalantly, and smacked Tony’s leg as he rumbled out yet another dramatic wail. It didn’t shut the man up, but it felt satisfying to hit him.

            “And why are we doing this?” Bruce asked, slowly lumbering out of bed to go turn on the lights. The room quickly brightened, and the engineer still nestled on the bed shoved a pillow over his head and huffed, calling Bruce a traitor. The other man simply rolled his eyes.

            Before Natasha could answer, Tony spoke up.

            “Did you lose your boyfriend in the air ducts again?”

            Natasha decided to ignore him, and instead answered Bruce’s question.

            “Because Steve and Bucky were curled up together in a fort, and I think we should make one as a group. It’s not like every floor doesn’t have some kind of a fort set up or has had one set up.”

            This made Tony shoot up, twisting in the covers as he tried to sit up.

            “Wait, what?” The man grinned excitedly, “This I’ve got to see!” Then he scrambled to get out of the bed, his legs half-stuck in the bedspreads. He didn’t get far, though, as Bruce gently grabbed the other man’s arm and stopped him in his tracks.

            “You are not going and disturbing them. You know Bucky’s hardly gotten a proper night’s rest this entire month, and Steve’s not exactly being a good role model at the moment, either.” Bruce told him sternly, and Tony flopped back onto the soft bed.

            “You kill me, Brucie. Truly, you do.”

            “Tony.” Natasha snapped her fingers, and the engineer gave her the sassiest face he could muster. “There’s an Avengers charity event today, and me and Bruce are sick and can’t go.”

            “What?” Tony growled half-heartedly, “You’re taking my boyfriend from me? Don’t make me be stuck there with Capsicle! He’ll just be holding hands with Bucky and making gushy faces the entire time! It’s sickening!”

            Rolling her eyes, Natasha jumped down from her perch and walked toward the door.

            “Remember, Bruce, we’re sick.” She grinned, and coughed into the crook of her arm. Bruce rolled his eyes, but nodded his assent.

            The only other response was another groan from Tony.

           

___                              ____                ___                  ___      ____                            __

 

            The two Avengers stood in the middle of the ‘living room’, the lights on full strength and bundles of blankets piled around their feet. They were stolen from around the Tower, but she hadn’t touched Bucky’s fort. She’d stolen every other blanket and pillow she could find, though. She’d even called Sam and told him to bring over his, and then told him to clear his schedule for the rest of the day and night because he had no choice but to attend the movie night.

            Then she’d hung up.

            “Alright, now how do we build this thing?” Natasha questioned, thinking back to all the forts she’d seen Clint build. They were never this big, though. Bruce had a look of confusion on his face too.

            “The way you build a small one, I guess. Put the floor down first, and then work on the walls and then the ceiling.” He finished speaking just as Sam walked through the door, arms full of cloth and two STARK employees’ following suit with bales of their own. The ex-military man threw them on the ground, and the two workers gladly set their own piles down and walked away toward the elevator with fake, plastered smiles.

            “There. Every fucking blanket I own. Does that make you happy?” Sam huffed, and Natasha walked over to the lump of blankets. She picked out the pillows, and threw them toward the pile that she’d gathered from the tower. Then, carefully, she selected the thickest quilts and dragged them toward the center of the room.

            Bruce came over to help her spread them out, and Sam stretched his arms above his head theatrically before following suit.

            Soon the floor was a mess of soft, sagging mantles and Natasha stepped back and nodded happily at their work. The pillows were placed strategically and fluffed, and the two Avengers laughed as Sam showed them the “proper way to fluff a pillow”.

            Next the walls were tackled. Thin, light blankets were strung and tied over chairs, and held together with a mess of duct tape, hair ties, and clothesline clips. It took several times to get the walls perfect—strong and steady where they hung—but eventually they got it right and smiles were cast around in surplus.

            “Now how are we going to get the ceiling on?” Bruce pondered, peering at the skeleton of their fort. “And make sure it doesn’t fall down, of course.”

            Sam and Natasha both looked at each other, then the fort, then each other again. Everyone had the same question bubbling on their lips.

            “If you stretch a few blankets over the same chairs the walls are attached to, you could perhaps just have a low-lying one.” Everyone looked up at the ceiling in surprise, as Jarvis hadn’t spoken yet.

            “Hey, Jarvis buddy; do you know if there is any PVC piping lying around?” Sam asked, peering up at the ceiling.

            The disembodied voice this time drifted expectedly into the room, and Bruce and Natasha both looked at Sam confused.

            “Yes, Mr. Wilson, would you like me to direct one of Mr. Stark’s employee’s to get them for you?”

            Sam beamed wide at his two fellow fort builders, and nodded happily.

            “Yeah, and can you ask them to get another role of duct tape, too?”

            “Certainly, sir. Is that all?”

            “Yeah, thanks Jarvis.”

            Natasha peered at Sam, and the man was quick to explain himself.

            “Alright, so you know how the chairs are holding up the walls? If we make a ‘V’ with the PVC then we can duct tape that to the chair tops and make a ‘V’ roof. All we have to do is lay the blankets over the frame.”

            Natasha would deny, withholding blushing, the fact that she grabbed Sam into a hug to her dying day, but Bruce clapped him on the back with no regret.

            The STARK employee, arms full of white piping and one wrist burdened with a roll of silver tape, stumbled into the room and carefully placed it on the floor before the three. Sam thanked her then snatched up the tape and plastic and set to work. Natasha and Bruce quickly jumped in, doing everything the man instructed.

            Soon the roof’s skeleton was made, and Bruce glanced at the clock.

            “They’ll be home in an hour.”

            Sam made a distressed noise in the back of his throat, but Natasha quickly calmed them both down.       

            “Don’t worry, we’re almost done. Here, I’ll hold up this side, Bruce you take the other. Sam you can take the frame to the chairs.”

            It took half an hour alone to get the structure secure, and the duct tape was nearly all gone. Then, with an act of team work that rivaled the Avengers as a whole, they spanned blankets across the mount and fortified them so that the roof was fully covered.

Almost in awe the three stepped back, and took in the massive fort that dominated the room. The walls were perfect, the roof surpassing the architecture of the most colossal of churches, and the floor looked like the perfect thickness.

            It was perfect.

            Sam rushed off with Bruce to the kitchen, hauling back armfuls of food with fake-hateful mutters of “super soldiers and their damned super soldier boyfriends”. ( _And yes, those were all Sam’s words._ ) Quickly setting up the TV and entertainment system, Natasha arranged a stack of movies outside the fort’s entrance, and strung up the Christmas lights (stolen from Bucky’s fort) along the three walls.

            The elevator dinged and footsteps padded toward the fort, so the three builders scrambled inside the fort. Tony was the first one to lope in, followed by Clint, and both simply shrugged before sliding inside. Bucky walked in behind them, pulling Steve behind him, and he stopped with a confused and slightly scared look on his face. His voice was so low that only Steve could hear.

“Is this to mock me?”

Steve tugged him forward, whispering in his ear until Bucky’s legs unlocked and they both padded slowly toward the fort’s door. Natasha peered out of the darkness at them, smiling and gaily speaking in Russian to Bucky before stealing his hand and pulling him into the nest of pillows and blankets. Clint moved a little further over, and Steve climbed in between Bucky and Sam. Bruce, on the other side of Tony, handed the remote over to Natasha and Clint whined for her to give it to him.

            She shushed him by smacking him on the head with the controller.

            Steve curled his arm around Bucky’s waist, and in turn he felt Bucky’s hand gently clamp around his wrist.

            Movies were watched far into the next morning, until eyelids were falling closed and everyone shuffled closer with sleepy mutters of goodnight. The room was as dark as the night, lit only by the TV screen and the Christmas lights, as the blinds had been closed and the main lights turned off.

            It was warm, and soft, and everyone took comfort. Clint and Natasha were curled into each other, and one of Bucky’s hands had been sequestered by the red-headed woman to hold. Steve was flat on his back, one arm slung under Sam’s shoulder and the other holding Bucky steady where he was sleeping atop the Captain. Bruce and Tony were a mix of limbs and messy hair, but Bruce had one arm slung over Sam so that his fingertips rested on Bucky’s ribs. One of Tony’s arms was limp over Bucky’s lower back, but he could feel Clint’s callused fingers light on his wrist.

            A day and a half later, when they’d finally dragged each other out of the fort with rested eyes and a little bit of burden removed from their shoulders, Jarvis announced that Director Fury had called.

            They had 37 messages, from him alone, to listen to.

           


End file.
